


i say meet me in the middle and, as you step forward, i step backwards

by ffslynch



Series: Haikyuu Angst Week 2020 [2]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Break Up, Kozume Kenma is Bad at Feelings, M/M, Post-Break Up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-02
Updated: 2020-11-02
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:22:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27229540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ffslynch/pseuds/ffslynch
Summary: Kenma pushes it until it breaks, and then is left to deal with lack of an aftermath.(Haikyuu Angst Week 2020 day 2 + Bonus day - Phone calls or texts/ ‘Was I ever enough’/ ‘Has it been always this silent?)
Relationships: Kozume Kenma/Kuroo Tetsurou
Series: Haikyuu Angst Week 2020 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1970500
Comments: 10
Kudos: 35
Collections: Haikyuu Angst Week 2020





	i say meet me in the middle and, as you step forward, i step backwards

**Author's Note:**

> Vale and I went on an angry rant to each other about fanficition, and so, out of pure spite, this was born.  
> (Also, make sure to check out Vale's work, she is an amazing writer and you won't regret it - specially if you like akaken or kuroken)

There is a rasp at the door but Kenma doesn’t listen, and if he does he ignores it. His character is moving through the screen, a part of the map that he hasn’t explored before and has low visibility. There is a monster that is about to jump out on him, and Kenma knows it. He can feel the danger coming, an overpowering enemy that he is not sure if he has the right weapons to fight it. There is nowhere to hide, only face it. He types the game controller slowly, carefully, analysing the situation, completely aware of his in-game surroundings.

When it comes to real life, however, he is completely disconnected and turned off. There is only him, the screen and the unseen monster that watches him from the shadows. 

There is another sound behind him, a door opening, something being dragged down on the floor. There is a sound louder - something nagging the back of his head. 

Oh. 

Someone is calling his name. 

“Kenma” Kuroo repeats, for what's maybe the third time.

“What?” Kenma asks eyes stuck on the screen, waiting, waiting…

“Kenma, I’m leaving,” Kuroo says. His voice is tired, weighing him down, but it goes through the muffled sound of the background music coming out of Kenma’s headphone. He listens to Kuroo’s voice but doesn’t really register, focused on surviving. On not being caught by surprise.

The monster jumps out eventually. Kenma loses. And then loses two more times, before he is finally able to beat it. He finally lets out a breath, sighing with relief and satisfaction. He looks up and the clock on his computer screen tells him that is already 9 PM. He had been immersed on the game for over 5 hours now, and even though he won Kenma had this weird feeling that something was wrong, that he was forgetting something. 

He sighs and rubs his eyes, wondering what’s for dinner, which concoction Kuroo might have cooked and left for him in the fridge.

And then the other shoe drops - Kenma’s brain finally separating itself from the game and focusing on reality and what actually happened to him, as a person and not a character in the game.

Today was the day Kuroo was leaving. From the time, and the vague memory Kenma head of listening to him, he probably already left. 

When Kenma takes his headphones out, the lack of sound in the apartment is deafening. 

Has it always been this silence?

Kenma can suddenly feel himself recoil with disgust and uncomfortable with the unknown scenario. He hates it. It’s too much, overwhelming. His house had never been this silent before, he always had the sound of Kuroo doing things, cooking, typing, humming - existing in his apartment, in the same place as him.

When the whole ordeal that leads them to this started, Kenma had been annoyed. Sure, he had complained sometimes, and maybe he did a joke that flirted a little bit too much with meanness than he intended, but they were only jokes, and Kuroo should know that. And yes, Kenma loved silence, and maybe in the past few months, there had been instances in which he longed for it - to be alone, without Kuroo.

But now he is standing there in his room, stranding his hearing to try to get some sort of sound, anything that indicates human life, that maybe Kuroo changes his mind - only to come back empty with no response. And all he can think is that this is wrong. This is a mistake. And he wants Kuroo back. 

The issue with Kenma’s joke and lack of sensibility (or at least his lack of awareness of how much it hurt Kuroo) was not new - not when put into the grand scheme of their 15 years of knowing each other. But it was new in the sense that it had only been a few months since it had become something big enough to be mentioned. And if Kenma is being honest, he is not really sure at which point in his and Kuroo’s timeline it had actually become a big thing, when it had started to bother Kuroo, when it had started to be a bad thing at all.

The first time they fight about this, Kenma doesn’t really see it coming. He makes a dumb comment about wanting Kuroo to just leave him alone, calling him annoying, nothing new. Nothing he hasn’t done multiple times through years of friendship, without really meaning, and that Kuroo had never really reacted negatively to it. Except that this time, Kenma makes a mistake, a huge one.

“I wish I was dating Shoyo,” he says, without thinking “He is way less annoying than you, and that should tell you something.”

He doesn’t mean anything by it, it’s not true. Not really. 

It’s no secret that he was interested in Shoyo, but it had never been like that. Hinata had been an interesting enemy in court, a boss to analyse and defeat. And that was it. Everyone knew that, so he doesn’t really get why Kuroo gets so upset by it.

Why does it matter if he says he prefers Shoyo if at the end of the day the only one he touches is Kuroo? 

Maybe he shouldn’t have made the joke, or maybe he should have just apologized, but still, he doesn’t. He knows Kuroo is upset but doesn’t know how to make it better, he had never been in this position before. 

The fight causes a change in their dynamic. It settles something uncomfortable in Kuroo’s stomach, Kenma knows him enough to see it. But he still doesn’t know how to make it better, how to retract, how to erase the whole thing. In paper, apologizing is an easy task. In reality, is much harder. Kenma has never considered himself to be a proud person or someone that has a huge ego. He can be a little stubborn, and he can be a bit selfish. He doesn’t really like compromising. But still, he doesn’t really understand why is it so difficult for him to admit he was in the wrong, that what he said wasn’t nice and wasn’t true. 

Perhaps the issue is not his difficulty with the words itself, but with the foreignness of the act. In all the years that they’ve had known each other, over a decade of friendship and then a handle of years of a romantic partnership, he had never had to apologize to Kuroo before. It had simply never been an issue. Kuroo was kind, way too kind for his own good, and the most forgiving person Kenma knew. He forgave without needing to hear the words, based on what he knew of the person. He was always happy to help, happy to give. And Kenma was happy to take. So he did.

Kenma has a vague memory of seeing in an American movie somewhere the words ‘love means never having to say sorry.’ He also remembers how much he thought how stupid. that was. Now he felt stupid because he wanted too bad to believe in those words, just so he feels better, comforted in the idea that he is right. 

Kuroo doesn’t bring up the situation again, ever. The next time they meet Hinata, he is polite and courteous, but definitely not as warm and excited as his natural tendencies had always deemed he to be.

Kenma, too comfortable in the position of not having to deal with the guilt, not having to force the words out of his mouth that admits his mistake and brings his flaws into the light, stays silent as well.

But silence is just a rope threaded by unsaid feelings, tying the heavy rock of guilt to the neck of an emotionally unstable relationship. This arrangement can do no good, only sink. This is the start of their descent to the bottom. 

Back to the present moment, sitting in his gaming room, Kenma blinks. He probably should get up, and go do himself something to eat. If Kuroo had left, then that probably meant that there was no food left in the house, since he had been the one to take over groceries and cooking for the most part over the past few weeks. 

Kenma could order take out, but Kuroo was also the one that always got the food from downstairs, so Kenma wouldn’t have to face his own social anxiety by interacting with the employee for the delivery service.

Now that he is more aware of the situation, alone in his apartment, the silence makes as if there was nowhere to hide from it, Kenma thinks that he probably should have prepared himself more for the situation. 

The break-up talk had actually happened a week ago, and in all honesty, Kenma simply didn’t quite believe it was true. He still doesn’t. For the most part, he had been just sort of expecting Kuroo to come back like he always did. Kenma had been teasing and making jokes on Kuroo’s expense, for a long time, maybe since always, but he guessed it became one too many. 

They had had other fights, because of the same type of comments. A normal person would have sat down to work through it. A decent person would have simply stopped. But Kenma didn’t know how to stop, how to change. It had been going on for too long, he didn’t get it why it mattered, what had changed. Why Kuroo had gotten so upset and what had always been a playful and light-hearted habit into their relationship, had suddenly become something hurting. 

And Kenma was so very bad when it came to dealing with change. So even though he could notice that sometimes Kuroo was quieter than usual, looked more tired than usual, he still didn’t change. Not even when he noticed that sometimes when Kenma talked he would turn to find Kuroo looking at him, with eyes filled with nostalgic longing, as if he was looking into a ghost or a memory instead of a real person. Kenma was unmoving, solidified into his habits.

But Kuroo was changing - had changed. Somewhere along the line, he had started to want more or to want different things. Kenma wasn’t quite sure, if he was being honest he hadn’t paid much attention to it. He had always fallen under the assumption that eventually, things would go back to normal. But Kuroo had grown tired of what they called normal and didn’t seem to have the patience for their same old dynamics. He wanted change, to break the cycle. And he did try to make Kenma change too, but it was useless, it only made Kenma annoyed - which only lead to Kuroo getting even more tired. So tired, that he gave up.

There had been a Thursday, a couple of months ago, in which Kuroo had tried to pry him away from his game to have dinner, once again. Annoyed, and hyperfocused on his tasks, Kenma shushed him and told him to leave him alone. So Kuroo did. 

That had been the first time in 15 years that Kuroo had ever given up on Kenma. And the worst part was that Kenma couldn’t even bring himself to care. His priorities had been piling up and piling up and Kuroo had always been so understanding, that honestly, Kenma didn’t really expect him to ever stop coming back. That’s how they worked, how they had always worked. It made no sense to change now - but alas, something did. Maybe that’s what comes with growing up, maybe they had become too different. Maybe something else happened, that made Kuroo start believing in Kenma, and receiving the words he said as personal attacks instead of dumb comments that should not be taken seriously. Maybe it always bothered him, and he just got tired of hiding, of letting Kenma get away with his bullshit. Maybe Kuroo had grown tired of being the one putting the effort in and making the moves, as he had been doing for all their time together. 

Kuroo’s last attempt had happened only two weeks ago. At the time, Kenma had actually thought of it as something big, or unexpected, even though he really shouldn’t have. The words coming out of Kuroo’s mouth were a heavy thing to hear and deal with, and the conversation had made him want to crawl out of his skin, getting him off guard. In reality, it was a long time coming. 

Still, maybe he should have given more importance to it. 

“Kenma” Kuroo’s voice calls his attention, and Kenma looks up from his phone, where he had been replying to a few fans of the channel. “We need to talk”.

His voice is unusually tense, and it sets a cold, uncomfortable feeling on Kenma’s stomach. He is not used to Kuroo using that voice tone, much less with him. He was always his softest around Kenma. 

“Ok” Kenma replies, hesitant. “Go on…”

“Can you please put your phone down?” Kuroo asks with a sigh and Kenma furrows his eyebrows. Kuroo never asked him stuff like that, because he knew that sometimes, when Kenma got nervous, it helped to pay attention to something else, like tapping away on his phone, instead of being a 100% ‘present’ in the uncomfortable situation. For him to be asking that it meant he probably wanted Kenma to make eye contact with him while he talked, which didn’t ease the feeling that was building on Kenma’s guts one bit.

“I guess” he murmurs, putting his phone down. He doesn’t really look up tho, not wanting to give up the privacy and protection of hiding behind his now shoulder-length hair. Kuroo only sighed, accepting that this was as good as it was going to get. A compromise. 

“I want to talk to you about your live stream the other day.”

“Which one?” there is a beat of silence, before Kuroo answers

“The one from Tuesday, where I was in.” 

“Oh.” Kenma replies, frowning. Why would Kuroo want to talk about that? It had been a pretty standard stream, to end the day. Just 6 hours of gaming, and only 23k viewers as it was the middle of the week. Kuroo had joined him, tired from work, just hanging out and eventually annoying Kenma enough to turn off and go to bed. “Why? Did someone say something?”

“No, that’s not it.” Kuroo sighs again, and it’s starting to annoy Kenma. Is like the third time in less than 10 minutes, has he developed a breathing problem or something? “Kenma, that wasn’t cool, what you did.” Now Kenma looks up, eyes open in surprised and mouth slightly open with confusion. 

“What are you talking about?”

“Kenma you...you can’t possibly be serious right now. I’ve been upset at you all week, have you seriously not noticed?” Kenma gets even more confused. He thought everything was fine, that they were fine. If anything, this past week had been extra peaceful, if Kuroo nagging him less about gaming and bringing take out food home, instead of making him eat vegetables. If anyone asked, that had been a great week in Kenma’s mind. 

His silence and lack of an answer is all the confirmation that Kuroo needs and when the disappointment creeps up behind Kuroo’s eyes, his mouth twisting in an awful way, it made Kenma squirmy. Kuroo looked sad, extremely sad, it was the worst thing to see. 

“I see... You really did not notice.” Kenma is embarrassed to admit that he really, really didn’t, so he shrugs it off trying to change the subject. “Do you even know what you did?” 

It takes a second, but Kenma slowly shakes his head negatively. 

Kuroo lets out another sigh. 

“Kenma... I told you I wanted to spend some time with you. I was exhausted from work and needed some downtime. And then I came home and you were streaming. Again. And you wouldn’t turn it off.”

“But we hanged out in the end”

“No!” Kuroo replies, his tone tense and leaving no place for discussion “I hanged around you, while you played. I don’t mind doing that sometimes, because you enjoy it, but I told you I needed you. I needed to spend time with you, talk to you, interact with you, touch you, and just...God, Kenma I just wanted to be with you for a while. And you really couldn’t take a fucking break to honour me with a minute of your time!”

“My work is important to me!” Kenma replies, frustrated and wanting to defend himself. He knows he is not in the right here, but he really hates being in the wrong.

“I know that! I’ve always known that! I’ve always supported you no matter what! But this past year...” Kuroo shakes his head, eyes on Kemna’s every move “This past year, all you do is stream. And when you end a stream and is too tired, you isolate yourself in your room to play and relax. You’re always playing, and I feel like nothing I do is ever enough to get your attention. And then…” Kuroo leaves the sentence in the air, and finally breaking eye contact with Kenma, eyes glued to the table.

“And then what”

“And then one of your viewers asked if I was a nice boyfriend to you. And your reply was that I was just a pain in the ass… You said that if they doubted than that they could take me with them if they wanted, that you were tired of dealing with me. That hurt, Kenma. It really, really hurt.”

“I’ll do better” Kenma promises, to end the fight. He wants this moment to be over, to never see that look on Kuroo’s face again. He wants to stop this awful feeling that is gnawing on him from the inside out. 

And he does want to be better, but changing is so hard. He swears he wants to try, but before he notices he is back to old patterns. 

Kuroo had asked, but Kenma just couldn’t help it. He kept blocking Kuroo out. Locking him away, muting his calls, leaving him out of the room. It was ok if he was a little mean sometimes,

“God, you’re so annoying”

“I don’t have time for that”

“Do you ever shut up?”  
“Leave me alone, Kuro, I want to play”

At the bottom of it, the basis of their relationship, this was the truth: Kenma hated moving, and Kuroo was good at meeting him in the middle. Which was a nice way to put that Kenma got what he wanted and Kuroo made a lot of exceptions. 

In the end, Kenma knows Kuroo. Knows his nature and how he functions. This is probably the worst part. Because even after everything, Kenma knows that Kuroo probably thinks it’s his fault. That he has questioned if he is worthy of this. That he swallowed Kenma’s flimsy comments, and accepted them as truth, as part of himself. That he is annoying and too loud, and too much. If Kenma looked close enough, he could see the question on Kuroo's eyes: 'Was I ever good enough?'.

In the end, he is pretty sure Kuroo doesn’t really blame Kenma at all.

Kenma gets up and paddles down the hall, to the living room area. The silence is killing him, and the emptiness of the apartment doesn’t make it any better. His place had always been so much more...alive with Kuroo there. It was like there was something missing, something wrong. Like while he was busy, every single piece of furniture had been moved ever so slightly to the left. Not enough for the change to be noticeable, just enough for him to know that something was wrong. It’s unsettling in ways that Kenma can not describe. 

Food and hunger forgotten by the intense feeling of uncomfortableness that is quickly rising inside him, Kenma ends up going to his bedroom, thinking that maybe he should just lie down for a bit. He takes one look at the half-empty closet and gets a wave of nausea so strong, he thinks he might pass out. This is wrong. This is very, very wrong. 

There is no way to run from it, or go around it. He can only try to change and hope that he still has the time to fix this, so he fishes his phone out of his pocket in order to do it.

Kenma takes a deep breath and slowly taps the ‘call’ button on the screen. It’s time to make things right, to change it now

He raises the phone up to his ear and waits a few seconds. The machine beeps, and Kenma’s breath hitches, in anticipation of the familiar voice saying ‘hello’.

“ _The number you reached has been disconnected or is no longer in service_.”

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I've read a lot of fics and seen a lot of fanart in which Kenma treats Kuroo really badly, not in the teasing and provocative way that we see in canon but just straight up bad. And Kuroo never reacts to it, never does anything about it, and it bothers me to an insane amount. As I said, Vale and I talked about it and it turned into a two-day conversation about us complaining lmao, so I wrote this, because for once I wanted to write a Kuroo that knows he deserves better, knows he deserves to be loved instead of pushed aside.  
> Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this, as sad as it was lol. Feedback is always more than welcome, and if you'd like to scream at me you can find me on twitter!!


End file.
